


The Different Trials of Hiram McDaniels

by unsuspectingspecter



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Gen, I had a lot of feelings about hiram awhile ago and wrote this, spoilers up to episode 98: Flight, the major character death warning for violet btw, there's also discussion of that death but nothing more than what night vale usually describes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-28
Updated: 2018-05-28
Packaged: 2019-05-14 19:49:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14776143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unsuspectingspecter/pseuds/unsuspectingspecter
Summary: Hiram has many thoughts leading up-to, during, and after the Trial of the Century. Especially involving Violet.





	The Different Trials of Hiram McDaniels

**Author's Note:**

> There's not that much to say here except that I started writing this a loooong while ago after episode 98 came out. At the time I only wrote a few paragraphs, but I found it and finished writing it back in January. This is also my first fic I've ever written for anything ever so? Hope you enjoy it!

The days leading up to the Trial of the Century had been full of confusion, both for the jury and the literal five-headed dragon that was being put on trial. The jury’s confusion had to do with ethics and the concept of fairness when judging someone, based on the predisposed rules of right and wrong that society lives by, resulting in a form of punishment referred to as “justice”. The literal five-headed dragon’s confusion had to do with his indecision on accepting the future punishment for his actions, considering only four-fifths of himself was charged with a crime.

The dragon, Hiram McDaniels, was charged with the attempted murder of Night Vale’s mayor, Dana Cardinal, on the opening night of the Old Opera House. Four of Hiram’s five heads - Gold, Gray, Green, and Blue - were in agreement when they decided to try to attack and kill the mayor. Hiram’s fifth head, Violet, did not think Dana deserved to die, and so tried to stop his other heads, succeeding with help from the Sheriff’s Secret Police and the previous controlling of a certain auctioned-off radio host.

Having five consciousness that shared each other’s thoughts, along with the individual thoughts and actions that could be done by each conscious, was by itself a whole mess of confusion, which made Hiram’s current inner-dilemma extra confusing. Confusing enough to give at least three of Hiram’s heads an enormous shared headache.

“Now, Purple he- er, Violet, you need to understand that we did what we had to do. Mayor Cardinal took what was rightfully ours and we -” Gold stopped suddenly, feeling the stray emotions and thoughts of his other heads - _we had to do something, sadness, insolent mayor should have burned, agreement, anger, logical course of action -_ but especially those of Violet’s.

 

_Afraid, so afraid, messed up, mistake, right thing, right thing to do, my fault, mistake, shouldn’t have interfered, hurt Cecil, wrong, always wrong, paranoid. . ._

 

Gold winced as he felt - no, _understood_ \- Violet’s mixed emotions. Violet’s doubts and fears and guilt weren’t as strongly all-consuming when experienced secondhand through shared thoughts, but nonetheless, Gold could understand the emotional pain Violet was burdened by. A small bit of individual guilt formed in Gold’s conscience as he considered Violet’s inner turmoil, knowing that it wasn’t just Gold’s and the other head’s actions that was causing such distress for Violet; the worrying unknown aspects of the _consequences_ for those actions were the root of Violet’s anxieties, with the knowledge that certain punishments that could be enacted would be worse than death, even though Violet wouldn’t be the one receiving them.

Gold sighed as he experienced and understood his separate heads - specifically the head that wasn’t in agreement with the rest of his body - and chose to talk about the escape plan they had instead. His other heads, even Violet, listened. And Hiram McDaniels, literal five-headed dragon, let go of their confusion for a while with the intent of not needing to dwell on what would never come to be.

 

* * *

 

The Trial of the Century itself allowed for no confusing thoughts or feelings to interfere with its conclusion. Even the replacing of seven of the jury members with strangers did not postpone or change the trial in any perceptible way, nor the fact that people wouldn’t listen to the mayor’s testimony of the whole truth; the verdict for the accused was guilty on all charges. Guilty for conspiring to kill the mayor. Guilty for almost succeeding. Guilty for thinking that a dragon’s revenge would be excused in a human world.

From the moment Hiram McDaniels heard the verdict, he experienced many things, although not all at the same time or with the same head. Green was furious, Gray was anguished, Blue was in shock, and Violet was content to an extent. Gold was accepting of the verdict, for even though he felt all the overwhelming emotions from his shared consciousness and wanted to partake in some of them, he understood that this trial would never rule in their favor. It was the next words, however, from Judge Azdak which put terror in his collective heart.

“If Hiram is guilty of attacking the mayor, of attacking the very civic structure of our town, then he must be put to death.”

 

_Death? No. No, no, no -_ Hiram thought as a whole, all of his heads rebelling against the sentence. It was not death that they were afraid of, necessarily; it was the absence of consciousness that would be inflicted upon Violet when the rest of them were gone. The brutal, violent _nothingness_ that Violet would suffer from being severed from the rest of himself.

 

“The guilty four heads will be killed with a single bullet each, so as not to harm the lungs, heart, or any other part of the body shared with the violet head, who is not charged by this court.”

 

_They don’t understand, the humans don’t_ **_understand_ ** _, how could they understand, why would they want to, this can’t be happening, they can’t do this, he’ll be alone,_ **_I’ll be alone_ ** \- Hiram thoughts raced between his heads, desperately trying to make sense of the meaning behind their punishment. Green’s anger turned to despair, Blue and Gray were overcome by their sadness, Violet was outraged and terrified by the judge’s indifference. Gold tried to stay composed, tried to stay detached from what was happening, but as he felt the bile rise in his throat and the contents of his collective stomach fall to the courtroom floor, Gold sobbed as the judge’s words hit him fully.

As the Trial of the Century ended, and as the court stenographer took him away, Hiram McDaniels felt no confusion about what had just transpired. Hiram had committed a crime against the humans, and that crime had consequences, as all actions do. The consequence would be a punishment that would kill four of Hiram’s five heads, effectively killing all of his heads, even though Violet had committed no crime. Violet’s innocence didn’t matter though; neither did the fact that the jury was an A.I. and seven strangers, nor the fact that no one listened to the mayor’s full testimony when she gave it.

_No, there’s no confusion in this_ \- Hiram McDaniels thought. All of his heads could agree, as each of them fully understood their fate. But Hiram resolved himself as he was led back to jail. He wouldn’t let this happen.

He couldn’t.

 

* * *

 

There were a variety of things Hiram felt when he finally escaped. Elation. Joy. Triumph. All of his heads chorused as one in their shared thoughts - _free, we are finally free, the humans could never hold us, we need to keep flying, they can’t catch us, we are_ ** _free_** \- as he flew away. Green, Blue, Gray, and Gold couldn’t stop grinning and roaring with joy. Even Violet - paranoid, pessimistic, innocent - was overjoyed, choosing to partake in the shared experience.

The moment was broken by gun shots. Hiram didn’t realize what had happened, not at first. Sometimes it’s hard to notice the lack of something or the absence of someone when it disappears suddenly. But then there was short burst of pain, barely perceivable to the four heads who did not experience it firsthand, and then nothing. It was quick; the moment of Violet’s death happening between the fall and rise of their wings. The moment felt suspended after, frozen, as time seemed to stretch on as each of the heads realized what had happened.

Green was still insulting the executioner as the bullet pierced Violet. Blue and Gray were focusing on the logical and emotional concepts of their freedom as Violet’s head hung low and didn’t rise. It was Gold who noticed first, his awareness breaking through the other heads’ elation. Gold had been paying attention to himself and the others when the bullets sounded below them; Gold had understood what the sudden but subtle pain he felt had meant. It was Gold who tried to reach out to Violet in his thoughts, tried to reach Violet’s conscious amidst his own, tried to not panic as he couldn’t find Violet.

As the other heads felt this push from Gold in their thoughts, they realized what he was searching for. And all at once, Hiram understood that Violet was gone.

  


“. . . It was our fault in some way, wasn’t it?”

Gold started at Blue’s voice, lifting his head slightly to look at him. Blue had his head down, eyes closed, like he had been sleeping. All of Hiram’s heads were in similar positions, all looking as if they were asleep. One of the heads wasn’t sleeping at all, nor was it awake; this head was ignored by the others, for as long as the other heads could keep their eyes and thoughts away from it.

Blue’s question surprised Gold, mostly because Blue always asked questions imploringly, seeming to know the answer before it was said; Blue had never sounded unsure before. Gold wished he knew exactly what Blue was thinking and feeling, but after Violet’s death, each of the heads separately cut themselves off from each other. The emptiness in their shared consciousness where Violet should have been was too painful to think upon.

Green opened his eyes and glared at Blue, responding to Blue’s question before Gold could even form a proper thought towards it. “Of course it wasn’t our fault!” Green roared, quieter than he usually did. “The humans caused and carried out all of it. They took away our position as mayor, they took away our revenge, they took-” Green stopped suddenly, his voice almost choking as he snapped his mouth shut and faced away from all of them. Gold and Blue could feel Green’s head shaking with tremors as he grieved. Gray joined him, heaving out huge sobs as he moved his head closer to Green.

Blue shifted and opened his eyes slowly, seemingly uncomfortable at the distress he had caused Green and Gray. Blue spoke softly, still unsure of himself, “I’m not saying it was _all_ our fault. . . maybe it wasn’t our fault at all, not for what the punishment was. But. . . we knew this was a human town when we came to this domain. We knew everywhere else in the human world that we weren’t welcome; we were foolish to think this reality would be different when we made the humans scared.”

Gold listened to this. Listened and understood. “I think Blue’s right to a certain degree,” Gold said slowly. “We put too much trust in the humans to understand us. We couldn’t control the outcome of our escape, but we shouldn’t have needed to escape in the first place.”

Green had stopped shaking and was looking at Gold now, his eyes full of anger, although the anger was slowly fading into something else, something like guilt. Gray was still turned away but his sobs had quieted down into small, gasping breaths that seemed to be more regretful than mournful. Blue glanced somewhere below Gold, not able to meet Gold’s eyes.

Gold continued. “Violet. . . Violet should still be here. Out of all of us, Violet was the one we failed to listen to the most. Violet wasn’t trusting of a lot of things but Violet trusted _us_. And we failed him. We failed him the moment we planned to kill that mayor.”

The others listened, in silence, now, as Gray had stopped any outward signs of grief. They had all stiffened when Gold mentioned Violet, but the tension in their faces lessened as they heard Gold’s words. Then, slowly, one-by-one, they each put down the barriers they had on their thoughts, and Gold could feel, could _understand_ , each of their emotions. Violet’s absence was felt too, just as strongly, and was understood just as well.

And even more slowly, imperceptible by anyone other than himself, Hiram McDaniels came together from his broken consciousness into someone new. He wasn’t complete, not anymore. But he had learned.


End file.
